


Vale City By Night

by ItsaVikingThing



Category: RWBY
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/F, Family Drama, I dunno I'm thinking with sand here, Red White Black Yellow Trailers, superhero au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-22 22:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18536413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsaVikingThing/pseuds/ItsaVikingThing
Summary: Fifteen years ago, Vale City was a city of heroes and the greatest of them all was known as Silverthorn. Fifteen years ago, something went horribly wrong and the heroes were disbanded. The people of Vale tried to forget their heroes had ever existed.And for fifteen years, Vale City has suffered and sunk into darkness.Now, Ruby Rose decides that Vale City needs to change...Now, Weiss Schnee needs to choose between family loyalty and following her heart...Now, Blake Belladonna tries to leave her troubles behind only to find something she can't run from...Now, Yang Xiao Long's double life is going to be exposed and she's going to have to break her family apart to save their lives...Vale City doesn't want heroes anymore. But when heroes are needed, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang might be Vale City's only hope.





	Vale City By Night

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes, when you've been struggling with things, you've just got to do something quick as a kind of mental palate-cleanser. That's my excuse for this, anyway...
> 
> I'm going to do introductions for everybody as a superhero AU fic take on the Red, White, Black, Yellow trailers. Here's Red!

It used to be a monument, in the days when Vale City had heroes. It used to be a museum and a headquarters, too. Now the Hall of Heroes is an abandoned building, shunned by the people of the city the old heroes served and saved. That was before it all went wrong. Before the city had to be saved _from_ the heroes. Before the technology of Atlas brought Vale more reliable protection. 

For all those who could afford it, at least.

The Hall of Heroes was never a large building, but the skylights used to fill it with light and make it _seem_ huge. Or maybe it seemed so big because the only time Ruby saw it like that, she was a small child.

She still feels small, but she's no longer a child. It's her eighteenth birthday. That's why she here tonight.

Tonight, in the absence of street lights and the presence of dirt and graffiti, the Hall of Heroes looks shabby and insignificant. It looks abandoned and neglected. It looks like exactly what it is: a building that was locked up fifteen years ago and never reopened.

Ruby stands on the sidewalk, her fingers curled around the wire of the fence that surrounds the whole site. She stares up at the old building, ignoring the sign near her right hand that reads: _Scheduled for Demolition_.

The Schnee Drilling Company bought the site a few weeks ago. According to a conversation Ruby's sister, Yang, heard at the club she works in, the Hall of Heroes is going to be torn down next week.

There isn't much time left, but still Ruby hesitates. She tells herself that she's making up her mind, that she hasn't done anything that could get her into trouble yet. She tells herself that she could walk away, hop on a transport, be home before anyone notices that she'd ever left. She tries to tell herself that she has a choice, but that thought makes her fingers tighten round the mesh of the fence.

Whatever choices she might have once had, they've all been taken from her.

Ruby tugs at the mesh. The section of fence peels away from the post, exposing a gap that time and neglect created and aspiring taggers perfected. Ruby ducks down, unslinging her bag from her shoulder. She shoves the bag through first, then crawls through the gap, crossing into the weed-choked, litter-flecked forecourt of the Hall of Heroes.

She stands up, looking around warily, but nothing has changed. No one is around. Ruby picks up her bag. She takes a deep breath, and starts walking. It's only ten paces to the front door. Ruby thinks her heart beats a thousand times by the time she gets to it. There's no chain or padlock waiting for her. The front door is a solid slab of steel, without keyhole or keypad.

Ruby places her palm in the centre of the door. "Silverthorn," she whispers.

The night seems even more silent when she's done speaking, the last echoes of her words smothered under black velvet. 

And then there is a _thunk_ , followed by the whir of clockwork and, with a groan, the steel slab rises. The Hall of Heroes opens. It opens, but it does nothing to diminish the darkness. There are no lights on inside. There is no sound. Only stale air and the pooled silence of an empty space where life should be.

Ruby knows that silence too well.

She takes her scroll from a pouch on her belt and activates the flashlight. She walks into the Hall, her feet kicking up dust and crunching on pieces of broken glass. It's been sixteen years since she was last inside this building, but she still has a picture of the foyer. She knows exactly where to go to find what she's looking for.

Moments later, her light splashes over a carved stone plinth. Ruby angles her light up, passing over the carved folds of a hooded cape, settling on a masked face.

Silverthorn. The woman known for a time as Vale City's greatest hero. The woman known to a few as Summer Rose.

The woman Ruby never got to know as her mom.

Silverthorn wasn't given a funeral, in spite of her sacrifice to save the people of Vale City. By then the whole of Vale had turned on the remaining heroes, bringing them down or driving them underground. No one would have stood for Silverthorn to be given even the most humble of ceremonies.

Besides, the explosion that killed her left no body to be buried.

Summer Rose got a funeral at least, even if almost no one was there. Ruby was too young and Yang, only two years older than Ruby, had been charged with looking after her while their father and their uncle attended the service.

Ruby visits Summer's grave as often as she can, but it's always felt a gesture as hollow as Summer's coffin. Now, standing in front of the statue of the hero her mother was, Ruby feels closer to her than she has in fifteen years.

"Hey, mom," Ruby whispers. "It's me. Ruby. I guess dad was right about you giving me access to this place. He told me about it years ago. I think he thinks I forgot. I know he wants me to forget about Silverthorn and Gauntlet. Everbody wants to forget the heroes ever existed. They're going to tear this place down. They're going to--"

Ruby clenches her hand into a fist. She takes a deep breath. "They want me to forget the only part of you I could ever get to know! The whole city wants to pretend you guys never existed! _I won't do that!_ "

Ruby sighs. She traces a finger across the plaque at the base of the statue, spelling out _Silverthorn_ by feel. "Mom, it's been bad since you...it's getting worse. Those creatures you tried to stop, the heroes who went rogue...things are happening in this city. No one talks about it. They're too scared. But crime keeps getting worse, in spite of the Atlas robots on the streets. And the robots are controlled by the military. _Atlas'_ military. The people feel powerless. They feel hopeless. _I_ feel powerless!"

Ruby pauses when her scroll chimes. She switches off the light function and checks the screen. It's an alert about an armed robbery taking place at a store only a few blocks away. The alert warns citizens to stay clear of the area. It's a poor district. Vale City's police department won't respond quickly. Atlas' robots likely won't respond at all. Ruby puts her scroll away. She slowly nods to herself.

"Mom? Dad tells me to pretend I'm normal, to keep my head down. Yang tells me Vale doesn't have heroes anymore. But, mom...I'm like you. I'm like dad. I have an aura. I discovered my semblance! I feel powerless, but I'm not! I don't know what to do, but..."

Ruby traces her finger back to the letter _o_. She presses down and the metal yields to the pressure, sinking into the stone with a soft click. The front of the plinth slides down into the floor with a muted rumble.

"I don't know what to do." Ruby looks up into the statue's eyes. "But I know what you'd do, mom. You'd stand up. You'd do everything you could to help. You'd _fight_. So...that's what I'm going to do now."

Ruby reaches into the space inside the plinth. She pulls out an ammunition belt, its loops filled with silvery vials of powder. Ruby doesn't know as much about Dust as she'd like. The only person she knows who could tell her more is her father. He stopped talking about his hero days years ago, when he get sober. But as far as Ruby knows, it doesn't have a shelf life. Her mother's Dust should be just as potent as it was fifteen years ago.

Ruby straps the belt around her waist. She reaches into the panel again and takes out a ragged red cloak. She lifts it to her face and inhales, hoping to catch some faint scent that her mother might have left, but all she smells is stale air and musty cloth. She throws the cloak around her shoulders and secures it with the brooch she made in her father's workshop.

From her bag she takes the _other_ thing she made with her father's tools, the thing she made when she was pretending to work on a bracelet for Yang. Folded down, it fits well enough on her back, she knows. Before she straps it down, though, she takes one of the vials of Dust and loads it into the thing she calls Crescent Rose.

Last, she takes the mask from her bag. It's a simple thing, just a red cloth she cut eyeholes into. It covers the upper half of her face and her hair when she ties it on.

"Wish me luck, mom." She secures Crescent Rose on her back. She throws up the hood of the cloak. She looks up at the statue of her mother one last time. "I miss you. I love you. I'll never forget you, Summer Rose. I'll never forget you, Silverthorn."

Ruby turns and walks out into the night. The Hall of Heroes seals itself behind her.

In the forecourt, nothing has changed.

Ruby sucks in a breath of night air.

 _Everything_ has changed.

She walks towards the fence. She breaks into a jog. As she nears it, Ruby reaches behind her touches the trigger on Crescent Rose. Gravity Dust blasts out, slamming into the ground beneath her.

Ruby rises up over the fence, clearing it easily. She lands on the sidewalk, breathing evenly in spite of the excitement building in her bones and spreading throughout her whole body.

"You might not want heroes anymore, Vale City, but I think you need them." Ruby starts jogging towards a low roof, moving in the direction the alert about the armed robbery urged her to avoid. "So tonight, Vale City has a hero again!"

Ruby triggers another burst of gravity Dust. She rises up into the night, her cape trailing behind her. She lands on the rooftop, breaking into a sprint, running to face the danger that no one else will.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'll probably do the other three when I need a break from other things, so it may (or may not) take a while.
> 
> Please do let me know your thoughts in the comments below!


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